


Iron Skies

by Hyperius (Euregatto)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Betrayal, Canon-Typical Violence, Cunnilingus, Dismemberment, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mecha, Mostly it's just Porn with Plot, Robotics, Sex in a Mecha, Technobabble, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-22 22:58:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13176993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Hyperius
Summary: A civil war rages between the Republic and the First Order for control of the galaxy.Leia Organa, General of the Resistance militia, receives information about the First Order's newest weapon of destruction: a planetary machine that can consume stars and eradicate entire planets. Rising fleet commander Poe Dameron, gifted piloting prodigy Rey Kenobi, and the general's own son Ben Solo, are dispatched into the heart of deep space to deal with the threat.But a traitor has infiltrated the Resistance ranks, and no victory is without consequences...





	Iron Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked for a Mecha AU? No? Well here you go anyway. Be sure to let me know what you thought!  
> [ See me running full speed at it / Shattering, collide // Call it post traumatic / now it's do or die](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCu2gwLj9ok)

_"Falcon program initiating…systems rebooting…”_

Rey awakens with a start, gasping for air, inside the cockpit of her M6 Falcon Class Mecha Unit. The protocol replays once more like an eerie presence in the consuming darkness, and it echoes with a metallic groaning. The last moment she recalls is lifting up from the ground and then crashing, unceremoniously, into the ocean.

_“Systems rebooting. 30 percent complete.”_

The cockpit creaks again. Rey realizes, suddenly, she has no idea how long she’s been unconscious, nor how far down she’s drifted. Panic pushes her mind into complete awareness.

_“Systems rebooting. 60 percent complete.”_

The Mecha’s frame strains under the weight of the surging ocean waters that swallow it like a sink hole. Rey reaches for her control panel but her right arm immediately screams in defiance. It feels as if she’s broken something above her wrist. Heat screams through her dominant hand when she attempts to flex her fingers.

_“Systems rebooting. 90 percent complete.”_

Rey switches to her left hand and seeks out the emergency beacon on the panel. The flip-switch is somewhere under the main board, which she manages to flick just as the cockpit pitches in the darkness. A distant ping reverberates, a response to her distress beacon.

_“Systems rebooted. Calibrating.”_

The inner lights flicker on and Rey recognizes the muted threnody of engines, whirring to life. She fixes her helmet, adjusts her visor so she can share Falcon’s vision. Blackness of the ocean depths meets her gaze.

 _“Calibration complete. Assessing damages, please stand by.”_ The control panel screen pulls up automated graphs as the system sweeps for any problems within the Mecha. Rey is still worrying about how far down she’s drifted into this goddamn ocean. _“Heavy damage to quadrant two. Repairs required.”_

“No shit,” Rey hisses under her breath, adjusting herself in the harness that keeps her anchored safely to the seat. As if to emphasize the computer’s point, her arm cracks. Broken below the elbow, from what it feels like. On the overview screen she sees quadrant two, the torso of the Mecha, flashing red. “Falcon, where are we?”

_“Current depth: 3,000 yards and dropping.”_

“Overview report.”

_“Primary systems are leveled at 50 percent power. Motions, fully operational. Weapons, fully operational. Quadrant two is-”_

“I know about Quadrant two! Activate primary thrusters; get us out of here.”

_“Primary thrusters are offline due to damage in quadrant two. Sufficient sunlight is required to maintain secondary thrusters long enough to return to the surface from this depth.”_

Rey tabs at her control panel and says through grit teeth, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

_“I have not been programmed to tell jokes.”_

“Falcon, not the time!”

A light illuminates the plexiglass visor of her Mecha’s helmet. An M8 X-Wing Class Mecha appears, its hands reaching out and catching Rey by her chest. Her descent eases to a stop with the X-Wing’s support.

Then, with a burst from its propulsions, it reels her upwards, rocketing through the meters of dark ocean water until blue begins to return to Rey’s vision. X-Wing drives itself upwards, breaking from the waves and into the sky, and leans into an arc, swinging them both back to land. The ground is jostled by the weight of both bots landing less than gracefully.

Rey adjusts to the Mecha’s awkward gait when X-Wing steps away. The pressure from the ocean depths had begun to cripple the weaker points of the body’s otherwise sturdy armor, and Rey feels the pain as if it was her own.

 _“Sorry,”_ Poe Dameron says into the intercom. She hears delighted beeps that assure him everything is fine with the Mecha’s condition. _“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”_

The M8 class is built for fighting and speed – compared to her outdated M6’s focused bulk – with lighter armor, cleaner impulses, sturdier weapons and every bell and whistle their militia could ever want, but Rey is still surprised by the level of damage to her Mecha’s stout hull.

“I think my arm’s broken,” Rey replies. She asses her vitals on the screen, and sees the fracture in her forearm, highlighted by Falcon’s optic scan.

_“Seriously, Rey – I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. It must be a calibration error on my end.”_

“It’s alright,” she tells him, projecting the diagnostics scan of quadrant two onto his screen.

Poe whistles, impressed _. “That’s some hefty damage. These updates are going to do us good in the field.”_ He playfully punches her in the chest, but her Mecha doesn’t respond to the stimulus, its nerve endings nullified by previously sustained damage.

X-Wing moves across the craggy grasslands, and at the other end of the field, Rey can see the Resistance base. The D’Qar encampment is more like a small city with the support and funding it receives from the Republic’s grants, an impressive collection of towers and domes and landing bays, built into the hills like a natural phenomena instead of a military protrusion.

 _“We’ll have to call it a session,”_ Poe continues, and she starts after him. _“C’mon, let’s get you fixed up.”_

“You know Rose is going to freak, right?”

Poe laughs. _“Rose is totally going to freak.”_

  

  

* * *

X

* * *

 

    

“What did you _do_?” Head Engineer Rose Tico exclaims, burying her hands in her hair as she gazes upon the extensive damage to the Falcon unit. “It looks like you skipped training and went straight into the frontlines of battle!”

Poe and Rey exchange uneasy glances. Rey’s forearm had been meticulously casted in the medbay, but otherwise, the two of them made it out of the training session unharmed when compared to their respective Mechas. X-Wing carried only minor scrapes and dings that could be smoothed out in a matter of minutes. Falcon, on the other hand...

“I think my calibration is faulty,” Poe says. At his feet, his unique BB-8 droid beeps in agreement. “I was hitting way too hard for the level of control I used.”

“It’s not that,” Rose replies, turning to face them. “Your calibration is _fine_ , Poe. In fact, it appears to be perfect! Falcon is an outclassed M6 who’s last model updates were 25 _years_ ago. We can’t expect it to keep up with the rest of our tech.”

The group glance up as a segment of twisted metal falls at an angle from Falcon’s chest.

“That,” the engineer continues, “ _and_ we’re running out of parts that fit into a Mecha this old.”

Rey presses her lips into a thin line. Housing Bay A is brimming with engineers and pilots, and the air is charged with electricity and activity. At the far other end of the bay is a familiar M8 Silencer Class Mecha unique in model, obsidian black armor that blends with the void of space and sharp edges, standing at an entire head taller than the X-Wings. Intimidating, monstrous. 

M8 X-Wings are being assembled to imitate Poe’s obviously successful one, although his is primed with a black Resistance symbol on its chest as a distinguishing mark. They’re sleeker, faster, crafted to be brutal in the line of battle, and they’re ten entire feet _smaller,_ making them easier to build. Falcon is little better than a tank faced against missiles, outclassed by the new M8 Dreadnought units that were similarly designed to absorb damage.

“It’s not too late to update,” Rose continues. She gestures to Falcon. “We can always assign you a Dreadnought, if you want to keep driving something with bulk. Or – and I would have to get explicit clearance from General Organa, but it’s a possibility all the same – I could draw up a unique M8 Falcon model, just for you.”

Rey nods. “Thanks Rose, but I’ll have to think on it.”

Rose sighs, exasperated but she understands the pilot’s reluctance. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do for the Falcon, at least for now.”

Poe looks at Rey, perhaps with some semblance of pity, as she swiftly crosses the housing bay towards the Silencer unit. He'll leave his concerns alone, for now.

   

  

* * *

X

* * *

 

     

Ben Solo is in the cockpit of his M8 Silencer Class Mecha, repairing the damage to his control panel from his last mission, when Rey finds him. _Found_ would be the wrong term in this case because she’s intentionally searching for him and it’s not like he’s hiding. But she doesn’t say anything as she strides towards the pilot’s perch and sits in his chair, pushed back to allow the driver room for repairs, as if she owns the damn thing.

“Rough mission?” she asks him coyly.

The Resistance was, at the beginning, less understanding and more enthusiastic about his initial proclamation of migrating to their side of the war, being that he _is_ Leia Organa’s son. He’s the second-best pilot behind Poe Dameron, not that recognition has earned him any semblance of a friend group from those around him.

Thirteen months ago, Rey Kenobi, naïve and curious and a downright piloting prodigy, had been the only one to approach him and keeps his attention without invoking some sort of _wrath_. He complimented her scores, her adaptability. She touched his arm and something _sparked_.

(Back then, his father still had something snide to say about that.)

“This morning’s test run blew some fuses in my control panel,” he says, knocking a loose bolt back into place. And that must do the trick because the screens flicker to life. He wipes his hands on a rag, tosses it somewhere to the side, and offers out his palm. “Needle nose.”

Rey reaches down into his toolbox and fishes out the pliers, passing them over. He takes another half minute adjusting something. Rey suspects the lining that configures the sensors in quadrant four, the right leg thrusters, might have come undone, _especially_ if Ben was again testing the durability of the prototype hyperdrive tech. Since generation 5 the Mechas have been capable of short distance travel at light speed, much like starships, but that technology is now being pushed further. Longer travel, faster speeds.

Ben pulls out and pushes the segment’s shield back into place. Rey watches him intently as he turns to give her all his attention, bringing a small smile on her face. He kneels, the cold titanium platform digging into his knees, his hands brushing against her thighs. Her forearm is casted beneath the sleeve of her bomber jacket.

She sees him eyeing her injury. “It was just an accident,” she says reassuringly, “and it’ll heal in a few days anyway. The new M8 models are a force to be reckoned with.”

“I heard,” he replies. His tone is hard, distant, but his focus pans up on her face. “It’s a good thing the market is saturated with M7’s. At least, for now. Perhaps it’s time to finally retire that scrap metal you insist on piloting?”

“That _scrap metal_ was your father’s!”

He knows that and doesn’t need the reminder. Offset by irritation, he makes a move to leave, when she takes his hand in her good one, pulling him back. She doesn’t have to _really_ pull him because he simply falls back to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You know how much Falcon means to me; how much your father meant.”

He knows that too, but for reasons neither of them has ever wanted to dwell on. Rey leans in, half way, and Ben is entranced by his fixation on her beauty and the halo of lights forming behind her head from Silencer’s interior lights. He rises to meet her kiss, and more than he’ll ever like to admit, he likes the way she presses against him.

“I want you to be safe,” he tells her when they part. It’s a sentiment even Han Solo could have agreed with. “At least _consider_ a newer model. Please.”

She nods and kisses him again. His name is whispered against his lips, “ _Ben_ ,” and he’s come to recognize that ushered tone of hers, irked by need and implication.

He playfully nips at her lower lip. The hands on her thighs slide up to her waist. _“Rey.”_

The pad of her thumb brushes over the arc of his cheek, catching on his scar. Wordlessly, she pulls back and navigates out of her bomber jacket, lifting her undershirt over her head and then discarding it to the floor. Ren watches but he doesn’t touch, not until she settles and gives him an expectant look. Then he inches forward. Drawing closer, his eyes dark against hers and he only breaks contact to kiss her neck.

Ben kisses his way down the pallid expanse of her skin as she teases her fingers through his hair, ushering his name rather incoherently. He finds the sweet spot above her pulse point and sucks, hard enough to leave a bruise.

She moans in his ear, her grasp on him tight and Ben feels like there’s not enough air between them. He keeps his teeth there, lapping at her swollen skin, helping her shrug off her bra, and her hands are trembling at his chest, working at undoing his jacket, zipping it down with an impatient tug.

Then his lips are on her chest, one hand gently cupping a breast to admire it’s soft, perky feel. She shifts her fingers through his hair. His tongue flicks her other nipple, then his teeth gently catch it, and then he all but _swallows_ it. Sucking on her skin hard and determined has her squirming, moans slipping out of her lips, and he switches when she’s becoming too sore. Her knees press against his sides to anchor him between her legs.

“ _Stars_ , Ben,” she grumbles. Her patience is worn thin and he almost laughs. They had been gentle in the beginning, when they were first becoming familiar. Now he’s only gentle when they have more time between them.

He pushes her back into the chair and pulls down her cargo pants, tracing his lips over the contours of her thighs, pressing to every vein that pulsates and every muscle that quivers. Rey’s state of mind glazes over. Desire, ecstasy, unity.

Ben nuzzles his face to her neck and inhales, exhales. Again. Recollects himself before he crumbles against Rey’s gravitational force.

Between the two of them, they manage to scrape off her undershorts, leaving her exposed and panting. A part of him, some deeper, meaningless part, hates how Rey has this prolonged effect on him. She’s a professional serpent, in a way; slithers under his skin and smudges out the fine line between sincerity and sarcasm. He had grown tired of giving the people in his life _everything_ to receive little more than hypocritical rejection. People like her. People like his mother, his father, this Resistance –

Yet here he is now, situating himself between her legs, giving her everything. Always giving her _everything_. He lowers his head down to take his partner’s clit fully into his mouth and waits, earning a gasp of pleasure and a hiss of anticipation. Rey rolls her hips. “Don’t be a tease,” she says breathlessly.

He gladly gives her what she wants. His lips, working her open, his tongue, sliding against her heat and rolling over her clit. She’s devolving into a moaning, panting mess above him and he can’t get enough. It’s the hottest thing he’ll ever hear in his life.

“Ben, _please_ ,” she begs, her hands in his hair.

This woman was going to be the death of him.

He slides a finger into her heat, her velvet walls collapsing desperately around him, seeking his touch. Like this, just like _this_ – he could have her any way he wants. For now he’ll settle with her moaning for him, her voice a constant half-sob when he angles himself right.

She’s used to him, and he easily fits a second digit. His fingers curl into her, running little circles against the bundle of nerves that make her deliciously desperate for her release. Her noises reverberate through the interior of the Mecha’s cockpit. Silencer's interface must be turned off if it hasn't said anything snarky yet. Ben doubts he cares whether the machine has an opinion at this point.

“Is this the spot you like?” he asks, teasing her of course, and her answer is a strangled moan that isn’t a coherent yes at all. He shifts to rubbing her nerves with wider strokes, his mouth returning to her swollen clit, thrusting his fingers with promise. His erection is painfully restricted in his pants.

She tenses. _“Ben.”_ Close. Chanting his name as the pressure in her stomach coils tighter and tighter with each thrust of his hand.

He pulls his head back and presses his thumb against her clit, watching her face – and stars does he adore her expressions – her mouth hung open in ecstasy and her head thrown back against the seat. Her hips are rolling down in time with his movements. She’s wound tight, almost trying to resist her release and make this last.

“Don’t fight it,” he says snidely. Thrusts a little faster, a little harder to _force_ it out of her. “Give it to me, Rey.”

And she does. Her hips arc up as she orgasms, her ecstatic cry filling the brim of the cockpit, and she clenches desperately around his fingers. He can feel her blood rocketing through her veins. She pulses around him, hard and quick and her thighs are quivering, her hips moving against his hand on their own accord, his name is a sonnet on her lips.

Then he’s pulling up again, leaving trails of kisses against the curves of her body and the tension between them is like _fire_.

He is calamity and solitude, anchoring Rey to reality. Ben feels an ache that has been dulled by years of war and violence and a torment so deeply rooted in his veins he can’t recall the last time he’s been so _free_. Not with her, not with anything in his entire, miserable life. And still, he’s never paused once to consider what this relationship means, if it means anything at all.

(But it must mean something at this rate.)

His lips are leaving bite marks on her stomach, her thighs, sucking and bruising and finding a sensitive spot above her naval that he pays particular attention to. She’s desperately wet and quivering.

“Switch,” he says, coaxing her up and he takes her spot, letting her get comfortable in his lap. He unbuckles his belt, pushing his pants down just enough to free his erection. Rey straddles his waist, her arms on his shoulders to balance herself above him.

He’s breathless. She eases down onto him, groaning as his girth pushes in, hot and wanting. Ben watches her expression for every twinge of pleasure and pain.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her quietly, as if trying to convince himself she’s anything more than a dream.

“You say that often.”

He kisses her chest, his nails gliding up the length of her spine to feel her tense, to feel her shiver under his touch. “I say it because it’s true.”

And then the control panel _pings_ and the radio channel relays the incoming transmission.

 _“Hey Ben,”_ Finn says from the other line, _“you’ve been ordered to report to General Organa’s office.”_

Of-fucking-course. Ben hisses under his breath. Rey reaches over and hits the outgoing key. “Thanks Finn,” she replies, her tone slightly on edge. “He’ll be there shortly.”

_“The General asked for you too, Rey. I think it might be an emergency.”_

The pilots exchange uneasy looks. Rey hits the key again. “We’re on our way.”

_“Should I even ask what you two are-”_

“Good- _bye_ Finn,” she stresses and shuts off her end of the line. Ben pulls her to him again, his mouth working at the sensitive spot on her neck. “Ben, you heard-!”

“My mother won’t mind a couple of minutes.”

“A couple of _minutes_? With the way _you_ last?” she asks him incredulously. He rolls his hips, earning both a moan and her blunt nails, digging into his shoulders. She would certainly make him bleed if they kept this up.

“She won’t mind,” he says against her skin, and if Rey has any complaints, she’s beyond voicing them. Instead she’s focusing on the feeling of him pushing roughly inside of her. “This moment, this right here and right now, it’s all _ours_. I won’t allow anyone else seize it from us.”

And if she agrees with him – well, she’s beyond voicing that, too.

  

 

* * *

X

* * *

  

   

Leia Organa is in her office when Rey and Ben arrive. Her lips are pursed, her hands are crossed in her lap. To her left is Admiral Amilyn Holdo, an overseer of the Resistance militia from the Republic, and to her right is Poe, his expression perplexed but he is silent about whatever concerns he might be twisted over. BB-8 chirps when it sees Rey, rolling in small circles to emphasize its excitement.

Ben was unlike Poe, who had spent the last ten years of his life _learning_ to navigate the political outliers of the Republic, both unsuccessfully but otherwise calmly. Ben was very much unlike Rey, who had grown up on the outlandish, lawless deserts of Jakku prior to enlisting (and _that_ was a-whole-nother fiasco with FN-2187), her knowledge of politics is limited and speculative at best.

Unlike them, Ben was raised around the posh and livid lifestyle of senators. He’s more like his father, keen on establishing and maintaining a relationship with Leia’s “colleagues” that always keep them five steps away with good measure, and for good reason. And like Leia Organa, he knows _exactly_ how to navigate through a potentially unpleasant conversation with a potentially unpleasant government elite.

So he can also, by extension of his experience, tell when his mother is offset, emotionally or otherwise, by what is most likely a galactic or political _nightmare_.

“You’re late,” Leia says, her eyes pinned on her son. “I hailed you two almost an _hour_ ago. Finn said you would be-”

“Forgive me,” Ben replies and greets her with a polite half-bow, “there was some damage to Silencer that I wished to oversee myself. Rey happened to be in the bay, so I requested her assistance with speeding the renovations-”

“You’re just like your father. Always making excuses.” A coy smile pulls at the corner of her lips. “But at least _he_ was honest with me.”

Ben bristles, but remains quiet. He knows his mother means nothing by it. A harmless joke. But Leia is keen; if anything, she must suspect he and Rey are a _thing_ (as Poe had once put it without further elaboration on terms and conditions), whatever that might entail, and that could very well be the implication of her statement.

Admiral Holdo stands to greet them, and it effectively diverts Ben’s attention. She takes his hands in hers. “Ben,” she says with a warm smile, “it’s been a while since we last spoke. How are you?”

“I’m doing well,” he answers, his tone even. “I assume this matter is undesirable, if the wonderfully resplendent Admiral is gracing us with her presence.”

His political façade is up, pseudo-charm and proper speech, but he’s sincerely fond of Holdo. She’s tolerable, at her worst. And she remembers his birthday every year for whatever reason, sending him holomail that wishes him well and promptly presses him towards considering a place in the Republic’s council.

Holdo smiles, charmed, and returns to the desk. “In fact, we were just discussing it.”

Leia rises from her seat. She activates a holoprojection on her desk: a blueprint recreation of a domed structure like that of a planet. “We’ve received intel about a First Order base at the edge of uncharted space.”

Poe finally chimes in, gesturing to the diagram. “It’s a prototype energy capsule, from what we were told, at least; capable of absorbing a star to fuel its weaponry.”

“An entire star?” Rey echoes.

“Potentially,” Leia amends. “Not that we know for sure.”

Poe nods an affirmative. “As you know, Finn has been communicating with his friend in the Stormtrooper ranks. He was the first to inform us. Unfortunately, we don’t know much more about it – but we suspect the First Order could be building it with the intention of eradicating its enemies.”

Ben looks at the charts on the projection screen, comparing the prototype to the Death Star weapon from thirty years earlier in the war, and then comparing its predicted form – almost three times the size, an entire planet capable of consuming its host star. A war machine capable of galactic _genocide_.

“Our response platoon will be led by Poe,” Holdo finally chimes in. A promising promotion to Commander, then. “We should be ready to ship by the end of the week. I assume this gives us ample time to finish preparations?”

Leia inclines her head. "I'll assemble my council and inform them of our plans."

“So we’re just going to charge in and destroy it?” Rey inquires.

“No,” the general answers. “We are, however, going to push the First Order back and take a look at what they’ve been hiding. We will only resort to destruction if necessary." Then she brings up a rough blue print sketch of the machine's core operational facility. "While Poe leads the forward units, I want you two to infiltrate their headquarters with the ground troops. Whatever it is the First Order is building, we’re going to stop it at all costs.”

“We’ll prepare for the trip,” Ben says agreeably, before he turns and heads out the door.

Leia watches him go, concern knitting into her expression, and she looks at Rey. The other girl is watching the door as if waiting for him to come back. Outside the office window, an X-Wing unit roars out of the hangar, jetting into the limitless plains of the sky.

“To battle, General?” Poe speaks up, and Leia nods.

“To battle.”

   

  


End file.
